Wednesday, July 30, 2008

If you love comics, but hate having to know the ins and outs of the stories beforehand, the Initiative is a pretty easy read.I'd recommend starting either at #1, or at #13 - which kicked off a new team.

This is another wordless preview from Marvel - but I helped fill in the blanks, I think.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

"Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane" is a Mary-Jane-Watson-centered comic.This is more of a (whoops, almost said Dawson's Creek) Hannah Montana style comic, but still has Spider-Man in it.

It's a really good comic for new readers, as it starts out in the high school times. You don't need to be a comic geek or know years of Spider-Man history.

Marvel released this preview without words - and once again, I added the missing dialogue.

The inside jokes here: 1. In the current "superhero" Spider-Man comics, there's a redheaded heroine named Jackpot who looks like Mary Jane - but no one's sure yet.

2. "Gwen" is Gwen Stacy - Peter Parker's other potential love interest of mythos. In the "superhero"/twenty years ago history, Green Gobin dropped her off a bridge (yeah, that's where the movie stole it from and replaced her with MJ)

3. "One Day" is a reference to One More Day - probably still the worst thing they've done to Spider-Man.

The inside joke here: "My God. Bees." is a Batman quote. It comes from arguably the worst story of the year "Amazons Attack". One of their weapons: bees.

The inside joke here: 1. This ties in to Marvel's "Secret Invasion". They're not bees. They're Skrulls. Pretending to be bees.

And in all seriousness, sometimes that one page non-crossover like this counts as a "crossover" issue, kind of a way to get people who don't normally buy a book to buy it. Then they get upset. It's why people read books off the shelf.

2. Joe may or may not be a reference to Joe Quesada, who was in charge of Spider-Man's storyline "One More Day" - where magically overnight Spider-Man was no longer married to MJ . If it was Joe, then it would make sense that he would be here to break up the relationship. He has openly said that a happily married Spider-Man was boring for stories. Many disagree.

The blatant joke here: Cherry Chapstick.

The inside joke here: Another dig at the "One More Day" storyline in Spider-Man. If Peter was always and forever going to choose his Aunt over MJ, would MJ have ever bothered to have a relationship with him? Doubtful.

The Bizarro joke: If you am not know Bizarro means backwards, me am have so much sympathy for you.

The inside joke here: Maria Hill is a relatively new character - she's the #2 person in charge of S.H.I.E.L.D. which in the Marvel comics universe is an international military force. Like the Kids Next Door - but grownups. And their main base pretty much crashes in every single comic book where it shows up.

History of the Skrulls:Four Skrulls came to Earth, caused trouble impersonating the Fantastic Four.The Fantastic Four tricked Skrulls into surrendering.Then convinced them the only winning solution was to be hypnotized into becoming cows.

Go easy. This story came out probably before you were born.

So if the Skrulls had come back now, how would we explain we made them cows?And not just cows - but dairy cows?

About Me

(Not my real name)
I dig comics, laughing, and combining the two into funny jokes.
I think comics are a unique and timeless way of storytelling that span all eras, age groups, and lines.
I hope that something you see here makes you laugh - but also makes you pick up a book...